For anyone given to conspiracy theories Lance Armstrong is perfect cannon fodder. Doping allegation dog him long after his retirement and the story won’t die because there is a huge reluctance by people to believe he was, quite simply, exceptional. The ‘did he / didn’t he’ debate drags on but never seems to get stale – and is always perfect filler for a slow news day.

So by way of support for Lance - not that he needs much from us - here’s an extract from a book by Jules Eden and Alex Clarke (called ‘50 Reasons to Hate the French – available online and at all good bookshops)…

‘Armstrong is a phenomenon. Until 1996 the 35 year old Texan’s career was solid rather than stellar. He won the 1993 World Road Championship in Norway and some major US races, showing good form on the hill stages of the Tour DuPont. However riding for the French team, Coridis, he had participated in the Tour de France only four times and finished just once, taking thirty-sixth place in 1995. A year later, he was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer that was in danger of riddling his entire body.

Doctors told him he had a 50% chance of survival (they told his family 3%), cut off a diseased testicle and went to work on the lesions in his brain and his lungs. He came out of the heavy chemotherapy a changed man. ‘He had no hair and had scars on his head’ recalled Merckx, a good friend to Armstrong since they met at the Barcelona Olympics. ‘He became thinner, he was different morphologically and above all, he lost a lot of weight. He was completely transformed as a cyclist.’

The transformation showed in 1999 when the Texan won the Tour for the first time. Now he rode for the young ‘Blue Train’, the team of the US Postal Service, which gave him his chance when his old sponsors, a French telephone credit company cancelled his two-year contract during his illness.

Armstrong won again in 2000, in 2001, in 2002 and 2003, equalling records held by Merckx and only three others. It didn’t make him popular with the home crowd. When Armstrong and his team were introduced to the crowd at the start of the 2001 Tour in Dunkirk they were stunned to be booed even before the race started. This was the start of ritual barracking of the American through all subsequent appearances in France. ….

He is the only man tin history to have won the Tour do France so many times. Except that much of the French crowd and its cheerleaders in the French press do not accept Armstrong’s victory as clear at all.

Their objection was expressed in a piece of graffiti chalked on the Alpe road that Armstrong must have passed as he face to victory ‘EPO Lance. EPO is short for erythropoietin, a blood booster banned in sport.

…So it is dope, rather than talent, stamina, strength, year-long training programmes, superbly engineered bikes or the famous ‘rage’ that many French hope is responsible for Armstrong’s performance…

And they (the media) are eager to prove it one way or another. During Stage 5 the sport daily l'Equipe revealed from an unnamed source that one of four urine samples had tested positive for another banned drug, a coracoid. It was well known that Armstrong had been one of those tested. His team were besieged by the media until the International Cycling Union finally coughed up an emergency press statement stating that Danish racer Bo Hamburger, another of the tested riders had a certificate to use the drug for his asthma.

The truth is that Armstrong is the most tested cyclist on the Tour circuit. In 2004 he was tested twenty-two times in random sport-checks during competition and out of it by four different official agencies, all of whom found him clean. During the two hundred other checks he has taken since 1999 Armstrong has only tested positive once, the result of a legitimate prescription for a cream containing steroids used for a saddle sore. ‘The UCI declares with the utmost firmness that this was an authorized usage’ reads the official statement, ‘and does not constitute a case of doping.’

Whether is book deals or bitterness, there has been much speculation as to what Tyler Hamilton’s motivations are – but the last thing this situation is more speculation, it has had enough already.

A little potted history.

He coups off against King Idris,who was a deliberate attempt by the US and the West to push sales of Ginger Beer in Africa.

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews55662.html

From then on he behaved simalarly to most of the ruling African nutters. He didn't stoop to cannibalism like Bokassa, or apartheid like the Saffers.

Later he bombed a French passenger plane. The French negotiated for about 50k per passenger and kept diplomatic relations.

He then shot a copper in London, but 100k paved the way to continued relations.

The Berlin disco explosions then really did it for him. It pissed of the Yanks.

Thatch was happy to let the planes take off from the UK, but good old France wouldn't let them fly over.

Bombs missed, but killed one of his family.

We didn't try much after that because of "world opinion", notably the leftist press and the BBC.

He then arranged the Lockerbie terrorism to pay back for him being bombed.

Eventually we get to bang up an Arab in Scotland after a Dutch trial.

Eventually we get to release back to a country, an Arab on his prostatic death bed.

Only after he has paid up about 1million a head for Lockerbie- but delayed as the French realised they had sold their passengers short years earlier and wanted the difference before they would sign off.

Arab goes back to Libya, everyones paid off, and we can start to roll in the oil companies for a bit more exploration and profit.

He's back in the fold and gets camping rights in Paris on a State visit.

Later people start to chuck rocks in Benghazi.

They then start to fire weapons in Benghazi.

He fires back and the BBC scuttle over with brave journos sending earnest reports from the safety of the Egyptian border.

He kicks the rebel asses a bit too much for our Western 6 pm newstime's liking, so we send in the planes.

"To enforce a no fly zone and prevent civilians from being harmed"

The first strike was by a French plane on some radar systems.

Now it seems any country can read what it likes into UN protocols and bomb whatever they want. Probably including pro civilians, but on the side we don't like, or our Governments feel they ought to support in case of hard questioning by the BBC.

Now here's the rub....if I were a Colonel in the Libyan Army I might be thinking..

"Hang on a minute..one moment, youre happy with your pay-offs, are even happier to release a man out of detention back to us [when you are accepting asylum seekers from countries with a far better track record than ourselves], were happy to send oil execs and geologists to our desert and let our boss come to your country for a good old meet 'n' greet. Then a few people start shooting my soldiers up in Benghazi, we reprise and you now turn your opinions on a sixpence and bomb the shit out of us. Where's your consistency? Do you know whose gonna be in charge of the Rebel government? Cos last time in Afghanistan it turned out to be the Taliban, and you didn't like what happened next there. And you know what?? It's our country and if you are so pie-eyed about civilian casualites then I assume your planes are off to Zimbabwe, North Korea and London, where your coppers kill demonstrators on the streets.

About 2 years ago Janky was approached by a mediator for the Libyan government about setting up a much better medical system for the citizens. This does not reek of PolPottism dictatorship.

We happily let Saudis fresh from watching a beheading or ordering the removal of a child's limb deal with our Government.

But you know what Muammar, we stink of hypocracy over here and you just got caught up in it.

It's just a shame you didn't read the runes and when you saw the way we treat our protestors put in a pre-emptive strike on Scotland Yard in the name of your political system and strung a few idiot journalists along to give it credibility.

"And you told me fool fire water won't hurt me

And you tease me and all my ladies desert me"

Harold Bishop! Sir Les Patterson! Paul Hogan! Kylie Minogue and her bottom! Germaine Greer! Baldy out of Midnight Oil! Skippy the Bush Kangeroo! Mad Max and all the other Road Warriors on bikes with crossbows on their wrists!

Wombats, emus, cassowarays, quokkas!

Sydney funnel webs! Blue-ringed octopi!

Ned kelly- yes Mr Bucket Head!

The pig, the BIG FAT PIG in Razorback! Oink!

THE BIG FAT PIG in the Sheila's Wheels adverts!

Rolf Harris! - Can you hear me, Rolf! Can you see what it is yet???

Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!!!

You are now ranked 5th in the world, and WE , yes, the might of this glorious island are ranked only just behind India, South Africa (and Sri Lanka on a turning pitch.)

We did you in 1986 with Judgey and Lamby

And we did you in 2011 with Trotty and Pieterseny.

Can't wait for the World Cup when we shall add the spinning and batting power of Panesary.

England! Let's sing a song about the second city in Israel.

Read "Adelaide"

If it's any consolation to Australia, remember that English sport is defined by its false dawns.

An awful World Cup after easy qualification, beating Australia at Twickenham, only to play pathetically against Samoa and South Africa. We can't even bid for a World Cup without shooting ourselves in the foot.

Our sport is the bastard offspring of Audley Harrison and Tim Henman- if it were genetically possible.

So put your dollars on yourselves and watch us revert to type.

And on that vein..the shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is out...a gentle reminder of 2010, our sporting annus horribilis. That list in full:

Mark Cavendish

occassional stage winner in French cycle race

Tom Daley

child diver

Jessica Ennis

Commonwealth medallist, beating some Malays and Fijiians

David Haye

beat up has been boxer and university graduate in 8 minutes

AP McCoy

the only jockey without an Irish accent

Graeme McDowell

won a major and watched as an American missed a putt

Graeme Swann

2-161

Phil Taylor

not even a Commonwealth sport. Any game you can smoke whislt doing it is a pasttime, not a sport

Lee Westwood

never won a major, probably never even second

Amy Williams

Skeleton Bob..surely a cartoon character, not a sport.

So, there, our list of the highest achievers this country can offer the world this year.

Mind you, it is "Personality" I suppose, hence Rudzedski won it.

JCF

The reason why this blog exists, sadly passed away at 5am this morning.

Continuing to live - that is, repeat

A habit formed to get necessaries -

Is nearly always losing, or going without.

It varies.

This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise -

Ah, if the game were poker, yes,

You might discard them, draw a full house!

But it's chess.

And once you have walked the length of your mind, what

You command is clear as a lading-list.

Anything else must not, for you, be thought

To exist.

And what's the profit? Only that, in time,

We half-identify the blind impress

All our behavings bear, may trace it home.

But to confess,

On that green evening when our death begins,

Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,

Since it applied only to one man once,

And that one dying.

LM

Ah, and what fine pleasure it is to spend 2 weekends out of the last 3 in England's second city.The last one was for the eponymous "Dive Show". Remarkably a show based on diving, at the NEC. That's just about where the fun started and ended. The Naff Exhibition Centre really is the pits. For starters the best gourmet food around is a Subway. Gourmet for teen agers I am sure, but as an adult, raised on proper food, I like my meat to contain, well...meat. And a veg to have not been gamma irradiated. Shit, that stuff is glowing.

Anyways, we had to offload a large volume of a free dive magazine called "Tanked Up".

www.tankedupmagazine.co.uk

That's how the hard end of marketing works now. If they've already got a plastic bag, offer it up, and you know it probably won't be in the nearest bin within a few seconds.

Now this is my concern....the amount of people that refferred to said organ as a "book" was shocking.

"Oooh look Jamal. A free book"

"That's a nice book, it's got a picture of a fish on it."

Etc.

It's a fuggin MAGAZINE not a BOOK.

No wonder literacy is so poor in this shit country when kids get asked how many books they've read over the summer hols, they say 7 or 8, and on further questioning the teacher finds that it's not Trollope or Austin,

but Heat, Zoo, Nuts and Woman's Realm.

Christ's Big Cock...if you're too dim to tell the difference and let your kids think they are really reading a bloody book, then you as a parent should be sterilsed to prevent further stupidifying of children.

There wa sa time when it was marginally acceptable for this confusion. Yes, in the early eighties with the confused elderly. That's cos there was a similarity in those days.

BUT not now, never.

So Midland plebian, heres how to tell the difference.

A book has an ISBN number.

A magazine has staples.

Gottit??

JCF

Well the spider has still eluded us all, though Secret Canadian has found one of its USB living progeny on his wall. Welcome to the new consultation area. Another issue about moving was we though we would make our waiting area a little more homely and comfortable. Out with rubbish plastic sofas and horrible lino flooring. In with gorgeous sofas and matching rug.

But NO- we didnt figure for Health and Safety. A carpet is not a carpet- its a TRIP HAZARD. Now I have travelled far and wide on this planet, and a trip hazard is bacteria, Souk thieves, lost luggage, coral cuts, getting ripped off at the Forex. Not a sodding carpet.

So weve had to remove its fluffiness from the waiting room in case some daft sod falls over. They should be banned at home too in that case.

Can't think what a sofa is in HSE speak- I think its a FIRE HAZARD said our expert...in which case we should all shave our hair.

Crazy nonsense the fools

JCF

Christ, if MRSA weren't bad enough when you walk into a hospital, or the queues, a bastard bloody spider appeared on the wall right in my tiny office. OK, it might not have been as big as a Fen Spider, or Bird-Eater, but its fangs were larger than its 2 front legs. "They may not be poisonous but they can still give you a heart attack" once spaketh an Ozzie physician.

Any road, once JCFs staff had found a corner to cower in, help was at hand. Secret Canadian stepped forth with a piece of card and a mug. He promptly knocked it down the back of my desk onto my CPU. Damn fool. The bastard ararchnid then went and hid in the USB port. Canadian had patients to see so Brave Dave, the Banjo player stepped forth. He couldn't entice it out though, depite tweezers and a nice word.

So somewhere right by my feet it will erupt and run up my leg. How can a man work in such conditions??

I would take time off until it was destroyed, but there are probably more of them at home.

Boat Elf wants to free it outside when we find it. Foll, it will just come back to haunt me. I plan to stick it to card and run the F***er through my new shredder. A proper Batman style death that Spidey deserves.

There are a few milestones scattered around in life. Your first kiss, that first illegal drink in the pub, the first time you were arrested, passing your driving test. Quite a few in fact.

And today I have hit one of those reached in late years.

Yes...GETTING YOUR CHILD'S HOMEWORK WRONG. Poor Fly-Ass G, he was caught between the wrath of the teacher for "his stupidity" and his own inability to grass up Janky for being well thick.

In the previous years when they bring home the odd bit of long division, or what's French for Window..no worries, well in my scope of competence.

But now Fly's exams approach and it seems things get harder than a pub quiz tie break.

And thanks to 13 years of Labour- we are stressing our kids with more maths and exams EVERY year to rob them of their youth. [Well I spose that it will teach them how to fill in a claim form for when they leave university].

So to take the pressure off the lad, and allow him more time on the X-box I did a sheet of his maths.

123.....a prime number or not.

I said NO.

Disgraceful parenting.

JCF